Mason Bees (
Osmia) are smaller than honeybees, and great pollinators in your garden. They do not sting. They build nests inside hollow tubes, where the female lays one egg, then mixes nectar and pollen with wood shavings and deposits it into the tube. Then, she lays another egg, and repeats the process. She lays female-destined eggs in the back of the nest, and male eggs towards the front. She caps off the end of each tube with a kind of wax. As the eggs hatch, the larvae eat their provision of pollen/nectar/wood pellet to gain energy. By the summer, the larva has consumed all of its provisions and begins spinning a cocoon around itself and enters the pupal stage, and the adult matures either in the fall or winter, hibernating inside its cocoon.
I thought I might try to make a bee house for these little bees. Instead of buying wood and drilling holes in it, and being of the mind to reuse rather than throw out some Salvia apiana (White Bee Sage) flower stalks after they had flowered (and fed many a hummingbird and Carpenter Bee), I thought I might cut them and dry them to see if the tubes would work. The stems are hollow and reed-like, of varying diameters.
I cut the long flower stalk just below where the flowers end, where it joins the rest of the plant.
There were plenty of leaves that can be dried for making sage bundles for smudging.
I cut the stalks into 4-6 inch sections. Where the flower stems grew at the node, it narrowed down the space in the tube.
I took a metal skewer and carefully hollowed out the inside of the tubes.
I used flexible green garden tape to hold them all together.
Here is the house, attached to the side of my pygmy palm near the house. It is shaded, but gets morning sun. I have no idea if it will work, but I will keep you all posted! Happy Pollinating!
